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Jonathon Scott Fuqua’s latest novel, The Mystery of the Greaser Hotel, an urban fantasy, will be published by Bancroft Press. Bancroft Press launched Fuqua’s career in 1998 with Alex Award-winner The Reappearance of Sam Webber, recently re-released in paperback.

Alex Award-winning The Reappearance of Sam Webber has been re-released in a twelfth-anniversary paperback edition.

Fuqua will return to Bancroft Press for his latest young adult novel, The Mystery of the Greaser Hotel.

Now, thanks to a deal inked on December 27, 2011, Fuqua will return to Bancroft Press for his latest young adult novel, a Baltimore, Maryland-set urban fantasy called The Mystery of the Greaser Hotel. The Mystery of the Greaser Hotel will be the start of a series for Fuqua — his first.

For Bancroft Press, it’s a no-brainer, according to publisher Bruce Bortz. “The Reappearance of Sam Webber was one of the most important books in the history of Bancroft Press,” says Bortz. “It’s the reason we focus so heavily on young adult books today.”

The Reappearance of Sam Webber, which was turned down by three dozen larger publishers before Bancroft Press, won the Young Adult Library Services Association’s coveted Alex Award, given to “books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults.” It was named one of the year’s top five adult novels for young adults by School Library Journal, and was a Booklist Editor’s Choice for adult books for young adults.

In 2003, it was part of Peoria, Illinois’s “One City, One Book” campaign, and between that and almost unanimously glowing reviews, The Reappearance of Sam Webber launched Fuqua’s career.

In fact, for the twelfth anniversary of the publication of The Reappearance of Sam Webber, Bortz and Bancroft Press recently released a paperback edition of the book, the rights to which were obtained from Candlewick Press, which had originally purchased them following Bancroft’s success with the hardcover.

“And The Mystery of the Greaser Hotel will be even better, with even broader appeal,” says Bortz.

This is not the first time Fuqua has returned to Bancroft Press. In 2008, Bancroft published In the Wake of the Boatman, Fuqua’s only adult novel to date, an acclaimed work of literary fiction dealing with issues of identity. Bortz has referred to the book as one of the most perfect novels he’s ever seen.

Fuqua is also the author of numerous other acclaimed titles from other publishers, including Darby, a Mark Twain Award finalist; Catie & Josephine, a Washington Post Book of the Week; and the graphic novel In the Shadow of Edgar Allan Poe, nominated by YALSA as a Popular Paperback for Young Adults.

The Mystery of the Greaser Hotel will be published by Bancroft Press in late 2012 or early 2013.

Leading independent house Bancroft Press — located, like Fuqua and most of his novels, in Baltimore — has published some of the country’s very best fiction and nonfiction over the past two decades.